Larsson seals spectacular comeback

Last updated at 09:21 15 June 2004

Henrik Larsson injected further life into the race to capture his signature with a superb double to send Bulgaria spinning to defeat.

The 32-year-old Swede, whose decision to quit Celtic and head for sunnier climes has attracted the interest of 30 suitors in recent weeks, illustrated exactly why they are on his trail with a brilliant double at the Estadio Jose Alvalade.

Sweden were leading 1-0, courtesy of Fredrik Ljungberg's 32nd-minute strike, when Larsson dived to head home an Erik Edman cross and put the Bulgarians on the back foot.

The fans in the yellow and blue sections of the stadium were still celebrating seconds later when he thumped home an Anders Svensson ball to the far post to effectively kill the game off.

Team effort

Larsson was quick to point to the contribution of his team-mates to both his goals and the result in general, and struggled to rate his brace against the many other he has collected during his career to date.

"I don't know, I really don't know," he said. "The first one was from a great cross and I took my chance to go and head it and it ended up in the far corner.

"I don't know if I've scored any better - but I'm very happy that I scored here tonight."

Bulgaria coach Plamen Markov knew all about Larsson before the game and admitted that, had he decided to stay in international retirement, the result might have been different.

"I've said many times that Larsson is a very big player," he said. "Not only Sweden but football as a whole will welcome his coming back.

"I can say that, if he didn't play tonight, probably the match would have been different."

Bulgaria had actually enjoyed more than their fair share of the game before the break and were slightly unfortunate to be trailing as they walked off at half-time.

But Larsson's quick-fire double ended their hopes of a fightback and, when Zlatan Ibrahimovic made it 4-0 from the penalty spot with 12 minutes remaining, a boxing referee would have put them out of their misery.

Instead, substitute Marcus Allback added a fifth at the death to sent his side into Friday night's clash with Italy in Porto brimming with confidence.

Bulgaria's anguish

By contrast, Markov's men must regroup for their date with Denmark in Braga knowing that they will have to improve markedly if their tournament is not to come to a premature end.

"We had some problems in defence during the game," Markov said. "We knew about them before the match, but at this stage, that is all we have.

"Sweden played very well, but our team did not deserve to lose by such a big margin."